My favourite things about @gnome are:

• It stays out of my way.
• Doesn't overwhelm me with a myriad of configuration knobs.
• Doesn't get upset when I only use part of the platform (in my case, niri + mostly GNOME apps, but no GNOME Shell).
• The few times I interacted with GNOME developers, they were very helpful.
• I've been a GNOME user since the dawn of time. I experimented with WMs other than whatever was GNOME's default at the time, but as far as applications go, most I use were GNOME ever since I first started up X11. We seem to have evolved together, and GNOME's nicely following my taste (or shaping mine).